U.S. retirees busted at border with undeclared arsenal

This isn't a new story, but it's interesting on a couple of points. And yes, it's from the National Post! Ran across it while reading a link from google news about something else; the Post gave this as a related story.

Danny Cross, brother-in-law Hugh Barr and their wives were on their way to Alaska to celebrate Cross’s wedding anniversary when they were stopped at the Aldergrove-Huntington border crossing, 65 kilometres southeast of Vancouver, on July 11.

... The Canada Border Service Agency said that when officers searched their 2008 Winnebago after they said they had nothing to declare, the officers found a derringer-type pistol, a cowboy-style revolver, three semi-automatic pistols and a shotgun.

... Whysall <the BC lawyer representing them> said having firearms in Texas is a fact of life there. “It seems they believe they have to have guns to protect their property,” he said.

I just liked that last line. Yes, these are strange people with funny notions and outlandish customs, but they're entitled to a lawyer and I'm it.

Here's the interesting bit, to me:

The two were charged with a number of offences, including smuggling and possession of loaded, prohibited weapons, which carries a three-year minimum sentence.

“That charge is the major concern,” Whysall said. “It’s one of (Prime Minister Stephen) Harper’s minimum sentencing provisions which was never intended to deal with a situation like this.

Yes, the charming right-wing scum Stephen Harper and his unneeded, unwanted, proven failure, uncosted Tough On Crime™ legislation. Who is among the first victims? Why, the very people who would be voting for him if they lived in Alberta rather than Texas!

I wish I'd known about the story in October. I'd have been sure to get one of my own party's MPs to ask the PM about it during debate on his crime bill. Snork.

But hey, enforcing those laws already on the book, especially those tough-on-illegal-guns ones, is the right way to go, right?

2. I'm glad those dangerous smugglers are off the street

9. I'm glad a bunch of old folks with loaded guns

won't be driving a couple of thousand kilometres through my country.

I sincerely doubt that they pack up the guns and ammo in locked and secured containers at night or when they stop for a burger along the way, and although you might not be aware of it, there are bad guys in Canada who steal from and rob people.

Canadian tourists in identifiable rented cars were once targets of bad guys in Florida looking for loot.

You don't think that if it occurred to bad guys in BC that old farts in Winnebagos with US plates might just be hauling loaded semi-automatic handguns, as such old farts do seem wont to do, they might go after that loot in particular?

And then there's the fact that people who can't leave home without their shooters, even to the point of flouting another country's laws on the matter, are just exactly the people who ought not to have them anywhere anytime. In my totally unhumble opinion. Not in my country, anyhow, ta.

23. He is but returning the your typical courtesies

24. oh, yeah, that's right

I'm in the habit of making false claims about what someone said? --the allegation that I "seem a little peeved that it was three years" being a false claim. If that's what you're saying -- and that's the only inference I can draw from the actual facts here -- prove it.

(a) The article I posted did not report on any sentence, because at that time there was no sentence. So why would that one say I seemed "peeved", or anything else, about something that had never happened?

(b) I stated expressly in this thread that I oppose almost all mandatory minimum sentences, and of course I oppose the entire right-wing law&order agenda of our current right-wing government that produced this one in particular. I expressed NO opinion about what the sentence should be in this case. So why would that one say I seemed "peeved" about something when the only inference that could be drawn, if one had to be drawn, was that I would consider the three-year sentence inappropriately harsh?

It was a mannerless, witless post. Your own is just pointless, apart from being false.

26. oh, if only you knew what you were talking about

Google "jane creba" and explain how she or any member of the public having a gun would have saved her from being killed by a stolen gun in the hands of some very bad guys.

I can give you other names if you like. Louise Russo. Ephraim Brown. Bailey Zaveda. Killed by guns that were either stolen or smuggled, without warning, without even being targeted for any crime at all.

Firearms homicides of non-criminally involved people in Canada tend to occur collaterally or in crossfire in public places, as a result of mistaken identity, or randomly as part of a pattern of intimidation of the public or just for no reason, in school or workplace incidents just like in the US, or in intimate-partner killings. Not, in a majority, in the course of crimes like robbery or house-breaking committed against them.

So, if I'm following your argument, nobody needs a gun in Canada because it's so safe

28. That's quite true.

Canada isn't the 51st state, yet. So they get to pass whatever laws they please. And really if you think about it our Border Patrol and Customs would be coming down on a foreign national like a ton of bricks if they were caught "smuggling" a weapon into the country. Things like this is why we bother to have borders.

29. indeed

Imagine some Mexican senior cits in the same situation one border farther south ...

See the outcome of the case lower down the page. In other bits of the article that I couldn't excerpt, the judge stated that she was satisfied they were not "smuggling" in the sense of trafficking. This isn't something a border guard could or should attempt to determine on the spot, of course, particularly when they had outright lied about their firearms.

By prosecuting via the less serious crime route, the mandatory sentence was avoided. (I had neglected to check the actual legislation to see that the offence is hybrid, and only the indictable prosecution carries the mandatory minimum -- so the initial article was inaccurate and sensationalized; it's very common for hybrid offences to be prosecuted by summary conviction rather than indictment, perhaps even most common.)

The sentence was a large fine, and then they had been held in custody for five days when first arrested before pre-trial release was granted.

Because the offence itself was hybrid, even though they were prosecuted by summary conviction, they will now be ineligible to enter Canada, of course.

32. Problem solved.

If I managed to get myself locked up in a foreign country, even one as pleasant as Canada, and they turned me loose and said "don't come back" I'd be waving goodbye as I headed for the fence. They got a break on this and I'm pretty sure they'll never commit that crime again.

I used to have a friend who would never travel to Florida for that reason because he was terrified of passing through, or over, Georgia. The day he came off the chain gang he took their advice to heart. I know, that's a bit of an extreme comparison but it's what I thought of when I read the article.

Can you imagine the extreme buggery someone for, for instance, Pakistan would be subjected to if they were found in a U.S. Border crossing with a few guns? They'd never leave Harlan alive.

I expect these kinds of incidents to rise at the Canadian border and also in states that don't trust their citizens to carry concealed firearms. In a huge swath of territory in the U.S. carrying a concealed firearm is just not a big deal. You go get your permit and mind your own business. It's inevitable that a few of these folks who aren't paying attention will wander into no mans' land and get busted. I can gripe all I want about restrictive laws in parts of the U.S. but the fact remains that the law is the law and you have to obey it if you're an ordinary citizen.

22. let's read the fucking post I had replied to

A bit ethnocentric (I will be conservative here), no?

If you are really pretending to think that I was saying there were enough USAMERICANS in Alberta, the way your little construction says there are enough Mexicans in Texas, ... well, maybe there's someone who will believe that ...

Alberta and 905 are what elect right-wing governments in Canada. I hope that helps.

40. Mexicans or

native born USAmericans of Hispanic decent that speaks Spanish some of whom can trace their roots in the area before it became part of the US (and has a distinct dialect and accent)? I only hear dumb asses that don't know shit about US history bitching.

I can see forgetting about the gun in a motor home. Dumb is the snow bird that trys to use his PAL as ID thinking it allows him to legally buy a gun here.

41. what the fucking fuck are you on about??

The post of mine that someone is trying to make out as being about USAmericans is about RIGHT WING VOTERS.

It does not have the first thing to do with anyone's ethnicity, citizenship, national origin or anything else.

I'm glad that anyone who doesn't like Canadian firearms policy (pre-2011, before the changes wrought by the present right-wing government) doesn't live in Canada.

The poster I replied to initially is the one who said they were glad they didn't live in Canada. If someone wants to witchhunt for bigotry, try starting there.

There are enough people in Alberta and (area code) 905-land who vote for governments that serve the gun militant agenda in Canada already. And they're overwhelmingly people who were born in Canada, and hate immigrants to boot.

39. Just look at her use of "USAmerican"

42. god it's thick around here

How many times do some things have to be explained, and how slowly?

Anyone who lives in the Americas is an "American".

People in the US are Americans. People in Cuba are Americans. People in Chile are Americans. These are the Americas; this is America. You in the United States of America share the Americas, America, with the rest of us, whether you like it or not.

If you have a better way of referring to someone who lives in / is a citizen of the United States of America than "USAmerican", feel free to propose it.

Meanwhile, I'll use the term that is in widespread use in English, French and Spanish -- and oh look, Portuguese ... German ...:

USAmerican
états-unien(ne) (from Etats-Unis, which you probably don't know is French for United States)
estadounidense (from Estados Unidos)
estadunidense
US-Amerikaner

It is no one's fault that a couple of centuries ago, a group of colonies decided to call themselves by a name that failed to distinguish them from other parts of their hemisphere. You live in the United States of America. There are other states, and other peoples and people, in America.

I think that is telling of opinion of anything not canadian.

Whatever it's supposedly telling, it ain't telling it to me, and I don't think it's telling it to anybody else, either.

57. I've read many times over the years,

your taking exception with people who refer to residents of the US as, simply, Americans. I don't disagree with your position that anyone living on this continent or even the South American continent could be referred to as 'Americans'. However, you must admit that people around the world, even in Canada, would immediately believe someone claiming to be an 'American' is from the USA...to the complete exclusion of any of the other North or South American options. Further, I doubt many Canadians who travel abroad refer to themselves as, simply, Americans while traveling...or even at home for that matter.

59. Wouldn't it be most correct...

...to not deny/disparage the terminology in common usage:
American:
- A native or citizen of the United States
- A native or inhabitant of any of the countries of North, South, or Central America
- The English language as it is used in the United States; American English

60. wouldn't it be actually correct

not to insinuate that I have done what you are insinuating I have done?

I DIDN'T FUCKING USE the term "USAmerican" in this thread.

The term was introduced by SOMEONE ELSE in this thread:

rl6214
39. Just look at her use of "USAmerican"
I think that is telling of opinion of anything not canadian.

who themself decided to COMPLETELY MISREPRESENT the term and what it is used for, in an utterly incoherent way. The fact that I use a completely NEUTRAL term that is in common use, both inside and outside the United States, to refer to people/things in/of/from the United States is "telling" of my opinion of anything not Canadian (that's with a capital "C", just fyi)? What, it somehow tells someone I am not fond of things that are Chinese?

So what in the hell YOU are on about here, I just wouldn't know.

I have not "denied/disparaged the terminology in common usage". I wouldn't even know how to "disparage" terminology, and I'd be kind of a moron if I denied it, wouldn't I?

I have said that I -- I, I, I -- choose not to use it. I and many people around the world, in many countries and speaking several languages, choose not to use it. What business is this of yours? I use a term that accurately conveys the concept for which I use it (does anyone really not grasp what "USAmerican" means?) and that does NOT imply any insult directed at anyone, and just doesn't cause anybody any problem at all.

Cubans do NOT refer to people from the United States as americanos, just for instance. The amusing thing is that they refer to them as norteamericanos. So when a Russian in Cuba asked me, in Spanish, whether I was a "North American", I smiled and said yes, yo soy canadiense. And didn't that just flummox them.

So we can make a deal. I will refer to people in the United States, and things from or of or relating to the United States, as "USAmerican".

And everybody else can keep lobbing uninformed insults about Canada.

Howzat?

Meanwhile, you could go google something. Like this:

site:democraticunderground.com "usamerican" -iverglas

9,870 results (with the usual duplication), none of them having anything to do with me.

65. take off!

11. Laws on any topic should be reasonable, and applied fairly and judiciously

And if there are already laws addressing a topic that are going unused, it makes sense to focus on enforcing them before advocating for new regulations (which is the sentiment often expressed here).

Tough laws are sometime appropriate - I'm not a huge fan of mandatory minimum sentences in general, but I can see arguments both ways.

Whether Canada's gun laws are in fact reasonable is a question for Canadians I suppose, but it's hard to muster up much sympathy for anyone - however nice they may be - who crosses a national border, lies to the border agents, and then gets caught. Someone should ask these wandering Texans what treatment they'd prescribe for a Canadian (or a Mexican) in the same circumstances entering the US...

14. +1 Well said. nt.

15. this law comes to you from

the exact same right-wing scum who just abolished the long-gun registry. In the same bill, I believe.

Life's funny sometimes, isn't it?

Someone should ask these wandering Texans what treatment they'd prescribe for a Canadian (or a Mexican) in the same circumstances entering the US...

Very true.

I'm not a fan of just about any mandatory minimum sentence. Maybe drunk driving (we do have them, increasing with repeat offences -- but that is precisely the situation where deterrence is not effective anyway: addicts). I'm in favour of both sides being heard, judicial discretion being applied, and a personalized sentence being imposed.

The most famous inappropriate mandatory minimum sentence case here was Latimer, who killed his daughter, severely (which is putting it mildly) disabled, mentally and physically, from birth, in constant pain and with little awareness. The jury was dumbfounded when they learned that their guilty verdict meant a mandatory 10-year minimum before parole on a life sentence. There were more trials, appeals, applications for constitutional exemptions, and nothing worked; he did the 10 years.

The men — Danny Cross, 64, of Texas and his 70-year-old brother-in-law Hugh Barr — told guards at the Aldergrove border crossing that they had no weapons in their motorhome but a search disclosed a shotgun, a derringer-type pistol, a cowboy-style six gun, and three semi-automatic pistols. All except the shotgun were loaded.

Both pleaded guilty in Surrey Provincial Court to possession of loaded, prohibited weapons.

Crown counsel Leanne Jomori told Judge James Bahen their actions warranted between 60 to 90 days in jail because they had deliberately lied to border guards. ... “Canada is not an extension of the United States. It is an independent country and its laws should be respected,” said Jomori.

... Outside, Barr was asked why they were carrying so many guns, and he said he’d heard that northern Canada was wild and dangerous — “a bit like it was in the old covered wagon days.”

Good god. There were no "old covered wagon days" in Canada.

The prosecution proceeded by summary conviction (misdemeanour to you, maximum possible 6 months) rather than indictment (felony to you), which meant the mandatory minimum didn't apply. Myself, I don't think it should be possible to prosecute for posession of prohibited weapons by summary conviction, although I still would not support mandatory minimum terms.

34. We should just annex the west coast of Canada so we can get to Alaska unimpeded.

35. I've always wondered why you didn't just do that ;)

Or declare sovereignty over the highway, or something.

A lot of people coming from the US do think of the route to Alaska as something not quite the same as actually entering a foreign country, it seems. Having non-continguous bits of one's country with another country in between isn't standard issue.

45. just don't put it to Clinton

(Rabble is a counterpart to DU in Canada, several notches over to the progressive; James Laxer is a long-time left-wing activist/academic in Canada: for those who like to know their sources.)

April 25, 2009

Janet Napolitano, the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary recently informed a CBC interviewer that some of the terrorist-hijackers who carried out the attacks on September 11, 2001 entered the United States from Canada. This week Senator John McCain told Fox News: "Well, some of the 9/11 hijackers did come through Canada as you know."

... Hillary Clinton who was then a U.S. Senator from New York said that the U.S. should lobby Canada to tighten border security: "We need to look to our friends in the north to crack down on some of these false documents and illegals getting in."

Actually, Clinton was more explicit than that, in an episode some years after 9/11, and refused to apologize after saying she'd been misled by security officials and the hoax was plausible because we Canucks are just so lax, but it's kind of ancient history now and hard to find in the annals of the internet. She wanted to tighten up that border -- just what the economy of her stated needed.

Now my man Joe, you wouldn't get anywhere with him. In a series of interviews I used to have video of bookmarked before a certain someone tried to partition my hard drive and failed spectacularly, the primary candidates were asked several unusual questions. One was where they'd rather live if they couldn't live in the US. Clinton, she was just such an American kid, she couldn't answer it. Joe, he had no hesitation. Among us, of course! Hmm, maybe annexation would appeal to him then ...

We decided against taking the Turks and Caicos in. Maybe you could consider that.

43. They must've been from that militia

46. I disagree with Canada's gun laws

but they're a free and sovereign nation and may set their laws as they wish, just as we do. While I don't like their laws, I am not arrogant or ignorant enough to feel that I can take my guns with me wherever I go. The law is the law, and those morons violated it. I can't say I feel much pity for them.

47. stick to the NRA ball caps ;)

My little brother took my mum on a boat tour around Montreal Island a few years ago. Their table-mates were a retired couple from south of the border wearing matching NRA caps. My brother, who lived in Montreal, gave them and my mum the local's guided tour of the sights as they went along, and they all chatted about this and that. He also figured he may as well have some fun. Bill Clinton's book had just come out, and he congratulated the couple on their president's literary success, and spoke highly of him at some length (which might actually have been a bit hard for him, him being an actual lefty and all). They were a little non-plussed, but accepted it graciously.